The rant

that I didn't post yesterday stopped me sleeping last night so I've rewritten it:

I am in a psychological silo. I feel bewildered and isolated, though ceridwen is keeping me dejected company in here. Everywhere - on the news, in my email inbox, on most of blip, in face-to-face conversations and wherever I turn, I read about individuals 'surviving' the 'heatwave'.

I know from my photos that I see the world differently from most people but right now I just don't understand at all how everyone else's brains work.

"A poll of Conservative members ... found that just 4% wanted leadership candidates to put the country’s net zero strategy in their top three priorities". (The Daily Telegraph and, just to be clear, the country's 'net zero strategy' is for 2050, 28 years away, and 'net' means that greenhouse gases will continue to be emitted but that they will be 'offset' by 'carbon capture' (a technology that doesn't yet exist) or by planting trees (a scheme to salve the consciences of the privileged).)

Edit - two quotes deleted. See stellarossa's comment way below.

The dots are flashing neon at me. Do other people not see how they join up?

Kind friends asked me whether I was surviving and I could not reply. Using the word 'survive' when we're talking about feeling sticky, being unable to sleep, feeling fatigued and having journeys delayed is an abuse of language. What word will we use for what is to come?

This has not been a heatwave; it's an early (for Europe) symptom of climate collapse: the mild beginning of the future we have built for ourselves. It is not something for individuals to 'survive' (or not); it is systemic, it is collective. If we looked beyond our privileged shores we would see that in the places that don't count (except for long-haul flights to see exotic wildlife before it dies or to bask on hot beaches for three weeks of the year - what irony) the clues have been there for years and years. Decades, even. And we have the language to describe it.

Average temperatures have been rising, violent storms have been increasing, snow has been disappearing from the peaks, deserts have been expanding, crops have been failing (note the passives). Right now people are dying from not having food (we're talking food, not an electric fan) in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. We can dismiss Ethiopia because they've starved before so they must be used to it. We can dismiss Somalia because they keep fighting each other so they deserve it. But Kenya? Isn't that the place that we go on safari to see the lovely animals?

It's getting closer. And what have we done? Paid 30p for a supermarket carrier-bag-"for-life" (such clever marketing), taken a train or two instead of driving, turned down the thermostat a degree and put on a jumper, paid to 'offset' our flight or even our pint (see above).

At the moment XR has a campaign to get 3.5% of the UK population to sign up in support because there is some evidence (from different cultures in different times) that when 3.5% of a population campaigns for something, change happens. Think: XR, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth etc don't even have 7 in 200 people involved. Look at 200 people. Who are the 193?

I'm going the other way. After three years I am leaving XR because it's pointless. I'm sorry. It was a nice planet that we could have looked after but it's too late.